


Alchemy

by lemonsharks



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Crushes, F/F, Fluff without Plot, Shop Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:12:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dagna has a crush, and a conundrum: how does she get Sera to talk shop when Sera’s never <em>around</em>? (Turns out, asking is a pretty good technique.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alchemy

The elven girl is on _fire_. 

It shimmers over her skin and clings to her arrows and sets the training dummies alight, too. A column of smoke rises over Skyhold and Dagna can’t figure out how she doesn’t get burned. Unless _she’s_ not on fire--an oil or an alcohol would singe her hair and skin clean off; Dagna shudders. Other than a couple of scars and a few singes at the ends of her hair, Sera--that’s her name, Sera--looks _pristine_. 

And if she knew how Sera does it then maybe she could work more space for more runes closer to to places where hands and feet have to go. As it is, some of the runes heat up the metal to blistering temperatures, burn cloth and _melt_ leather. 

She lives above the tavern. Dagna’s seen her and the Inquisitor on the roof, laughing and throwing crumbs at birds when they’re in, which is _rarely_. Sera goes _everywhere_ with the Inquisitor. 

“I don’t mind it, and sometimes it’s fun. Keeps your head small, yeah?” she’d said once over dinner, waving a pheasant leg around like a teacher’s stick. Dagna had heard her across the great hall and paid _very close attention_ to them for the couple of minutes before they dropped their voices and the Inquisitor tipped his head back in a roaring laugh. 

_Fire’s pretty_ , Dagna thinks--says aloud? Harritt rolls his eyes and hammers the shield he’s been working on loudly enough to drown out Dagna’s voice.

She likes him well enough, but she gets the sense he doesn’t like her all that well. More a toleration. Like he’d rather have the undercroft all to himself or shared with his old staff. Dagna’s tried making friends, she hasn’t given up yet, but he just isn’t very _friendly_. No worse than the Enchanters at Wycome Circle, who looked at her like she was diseased and spoke to her like she was Tranquil. 

A little bird whistle rings through the workshop, just ahead of the slamming door, and Dagna perks up when Lavellan enters. 

“I brought you _presents_ ,” he says, moving through the space with a skip in his step. 

“You’re my favorite, Inquisitor,” she says. 

He empties the bag he’d carried in, full of Fade-touched minerals, silverite and stormheart, iron and veridium, as well as scraps of snofleur skin and august ram leather. 

“The Emprise and … Ooooh, arcane horror hearts! Crestwood?” Dagna asks, turning a silverite crystal over in her hands. It’s beautiful, all shiny and heavier than it looks, thrumming with protective energy. 

“And you got it in one,” Lavellan says, folding the bag. 

Dagna tiptoes up and kisses his cheek, grinning. She starts putting the new supplies away. “Heading out again soon?”

“Not too soon. We’ll be in Skyhold for a week at least--criminals to judge and so forth, blah blah blah.”

And that means Sera will be here for at least a week, maybe longer if he doesn’t take her on to the Winter Palace but--of course he will, and Dagna tamps down a jealous coal twisting nest to her heart. 

“I’ll be here when you need me,” she says, and joins in his whistling while he heads back out and slams the door behind him. 

She finishes early that day, and leaves the undercroft with the sun still glinting on the icicles and the sound of hammers on steel still echoing around the cavern. It’s chilly out, but it’s always chilly, and she rubs her arms to warm them back up. 

Dagna hasn’t had a free afternoon in a long time, she doesn’t know what to do with them really, when she’s spent every spare moment she’s had on more studying the last ten? Eleven? Almost-twelve years. This is sort-of studying, too, isn’t it? Talking to Sera and maybe she’ll tell a few of her secrets, if asks nicely. 

And if Sera makes her all fluttery inside, that’s just not relevant, is it? She still stops at the bar and orders a strong drink from Cabot before she heads up the stairs--not head-swimmy strong, but she can feel the shyness she hasn’t had to fight off since before she left Orzammar ebbing away now. 

She finds her fletching arrows in her room--all soft and pink and jumbled up, full of pretty things. Sera doesn’t notice her at first. She sticks her tongue out the corner of her mouth and moves the arrow shaft between her long fingers as she wraps the gut around the feathers, shaft, and paste. Dagna lets her finish before she knocks twice on the doorframe. Sera doesn’t jump, but she does look up with bright eyes and raised brows. 

“ _You_ knocked,” she says. “Lavellan just barges in all the time. Don’t know why I put up with it. Daft. Anyway, and you are?”

Remembering her manners, Dagna introduces herself _before_ she launches into her questions. How does she light herself on fire? What does she do to make sure the only things that burn are the things she _wants_ to burn. She’s never seen _anything_ like it before, when did she start? _Why_ did she start _this_ and not something else?

Dagna pauses for a deep breath, and Sera’s laughing deep in her belly. 

She wipes tears from her eyes and says, “Slow down, slow _down_ , I’ve never even _seen_ you, do you have a _name_?”

“Oh!” Dagna says, “Dagna. I saw you practicing the last time you were in Skyhold and--what you do is just fascinating. What _do_ you do?”

Sera makes a face, one side of her mouth pinched together and one eye all squinty. “Aaalchemy? It’s all essences and stuff in flasks jars. I break them, things catch on fire. Like--I don’t know, it just _works_. Unless it doesn’t. Then it’s shite.”

She can’t do a whole lot with that explanation, but Sera’s _looking_ at her with her tongue out again, and Dagna’s chest does the flippy thing again. She doesn’t want to just _go_ and it’s not _all_ about alchemy anymore. 

“Do you want to … come downstairs and have something to eat with me? I’d like to find out what happens when it doesn’t work. And when it does! Because you don’t _just_ use fire, do you?”

Sera stills, for a moment and looks Dagna up and down. She tilts her head. Then she shrugs and says, “Yeah. You know what? I think I do.”


End file.
